![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-1612098426.jpg\")
Orange County Superior Judge Ebrahim Baytieh listens to questions during a CARE court information session at Behavioral Health Training Center on Aug.16, 2023, in Orange, California. (Gina Ferazzi\/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)<\/p>\nFamily members, doctors or police can file a petition to bring a person into the program, and when Figueroa gets assigned to the case, he gives the family his cell phone number and promises he will do whatever he can, for however long it takes, to persuade their loved one to accept help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe tell them, \u2018Look, you\u2019ve been carrying this bag of bricks for so long, sometimes decades, give it to us now,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When Figueroa finally found one client he was looking for \u2014 a young, homeless man with chronic schizophrenia who fell into street drugs to quell his symptoms \u2014 he was hostile. He told Figueroa, \u201cGet away from me. Leave me alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Figueroa respected his wishes and left. Then he came back the next week and then the next, chatting for 10 to 15 minutes each time. Then he heard from the client\u2019s mother that he had been hospitalized in San Bernardino.<\/p>\n
Figueroa drove an hour and a half to get there, and because they had met and talked a few times already, the client agreed to see him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing he says is \u2018Giovanni!\u2019 and he starts throwing his hands in the air, he\u2019s excited to see me,\u201d he said. \u201cOne minute later, he\u2019s spitting on the ground, telling me to get the F out of there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Figueroa let him vent, and when he came back the next week, his client was crying. The following week, as the medications started to take hold, he was more stable. The week after that, Figueroa broached the subject of ongoing treatment and the client agreed. When he was discharged, Figueroa arranged to meet him at a clinic in Orange County, where he saw a doctor, got medication and was placed in housing.<\/p>\n
\u201cRelentless pursuit and engagement,\u201d Figueroa said. \u201cWhen they see you, one time, two times, three times, then they see you in San Bernardino County one week, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, and then they see you at the provider upon discharge, that\u2019s when they realize, \u2018Oh wow, they really are here to help me. They actually do care. And I\u2019m not invisible.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Orange County Superior Judge Ebrahim Baytieh listens to questions during a CARE court information session at Behavioral Health Training Center on Aug.16, 2023, in Orange, California. (Gina Ferazzi\/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Orange County Superior Court Judge Ebrahim Baytieh hears CARE Court cases on Tuesday mornings. The cases that actually get to him, that is. Of the eligible petitions filed in Orange County, about 10% \u2014 or 12 people \u2014 are actively engaged in treatment. The county is still looking for \u2014 or relentlessly reaching out to \u2014 the other 60, with Baytieh\u2019s full support.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt takes time. You have to be patient,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Even though the law gives Baytieh the power to fine the county<\/a> $1,000 for each day it doesn\u2019t produce a client, he doesn\u2019t do it. The law also gives him the power to order people into treatment, but he doesn\u2019t do that either.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had cases where somebody says, \u2018I don\u2019t wanna take medication.\u2019 They need it, we all agree that they need it,\u201d he said, referring to lawyers and clinicians from the county and the public defender\u2019s office. \u201cThe court can order it, but the court cannot enforce that order. If they refuse to do it, there\u2019s nothing the court can do, so to me it\u2019s counterproductive to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n CARE Court is a civil process, and people cannot be held in contempt or sent to jail for refusing care. However, the law does create a pathway to conservatorship<\/a> for people who don\u2019t comply with a judge\u2019s treatment orders. State Sen. Tom Umberg, who authored the law, intended the threat of conservatorship to be a \u201cnegative incentive,\u201d but officials in his own Orange County district, and several other counties, have refused to use this lever.<\/p>\n \u201cConservatorship is a dramatic move. Basically, you\u2019ve lost your free will,\u201d Umberg said. \u201cBut for many folks who are gravely mentally ill and a danger to themselves or others, it\u2019s better than just letting them live under a bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n Orange County\u2019s purely voluntary approach exasperates some families. They want more results, more quickly. They beg workers at CARE Court clinics to use a heavier hand or to help conserve their loved one. Some are bypassing CARE Court altogether and pursuing conservatorships on their own.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re frustrated, they\u2019re tired. They don\u2019t know what else to try,\u201d said Lei Portugal Calloway, a CARE Court peer counselor and supervisor. \u201cMaybe they\u2019re getting along in age, and they\u2019re asking, \u2018What will my son do? Who\u2019s going to take care of him when I\u2019m gone?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Some people are simply too sick, too overwhelmed by voices in their heads or too divorced from reality to ever make a rational decision to accept or reject care. More than 50% of people with schizophrenia have no awareness that they\u2019re ill<\/a>. This is not denial or obstinacy, but a symptom of the disease. No amount of persuasion will ever convince them.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you build a system that is entirely dependent on the idea that eventually people will seek care, that very ill segment of the population is just trapped outside of it,\u201d said Lisa Dailey, executive director of the nonprofit Treatment Advocacy Center.<\/p>\n Relentless outreach that drags on for more than a year is more like never-ending outreach, she said. Involuntary tools or \u201clight coercion,\u201d like inducements or leaning on the threat of conservatorship, may be necessary to get some people well, Dailey argued. To simply dismiss cases where people won\u2019t or can\u2019t agree to treatment is unethical.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re really just prolonging a miserable state for people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Research on mandatory treatment programs in other states shows mixed results<\/a>, but with solid funding and court oversight, approaches similar to Orange County\u2019s that meet people where they are and surround them with services and support tend to be the most effective at reducing hospitalization and incarceration<\/a>.<\/p>\n While there is little research examining whether relentless outreach alone is effective at getting people to accept comprehensive treatment, other studies<\/a> show that people who have a consistent and trusted ally \u2014 such as a clinician, a peer or a social worker like Figueroa \u2014 are more likely to participate in their own care.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/GettyImages-1244278587.jpg\")
California State Sen. Tom Umberg during the opening of the Hope Center in Fullerton, California, on Oct. 27, 2022. The facility is a new unified command center for health care workers, CBOs and local law enforcement to address homelessness collaboratively. (Jeff Gritchen\/MediaNews Group\/Orange County Register via Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Rodriguez_CARE_07_11_2025-3.jpg\")
Living Word of Garden Grove church members pray for Angela during a homeless outreach event in a DMV parking lot in Santa Ana, California, on July 11, 2025. (David Rodriguez for KQED)<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/IMG_0165.jpg\")
Keris Myrick, right, who has schizophrenia, with her father, Dr. Howard Myrick, in June 2015. (Courtesy of Keris Myrick)<\/p>\n